INDIANAPOLIS — The Midwestern city best known for its basketball team and auto racing is gearing
up for a proper game of cricket — the ball-and-bat sport most Americans know only from British
films or by surfing through international sports channels.

Indianapolis is spending $6 million to equip one of its parks with a premier cricket field,
known as a pitch, and space for Gaelic football, rugby, hurling and other sports mainly popular
overseas.

Mayor Greg Ballard hopes his World Sports Park project brings international exposure to Indiana’s
capital and helps local companies attract talented overseas workers by offering them a home for
their favorite games.

“These are global sports, and they’ll give us more visibility in the global marketplace,” he
said.

Cities across the country are jockeying for any advantage they can find to boost economic
development, and sports is an easy target. But can a sport that most Americans are unfamiliar with
have the same payoff?

It’s a gamble, said Bob Dorfman, a sports-marketing expert at San Francisco’s Baker Street
Advertising.

“How do you sell it to a public who really doesn’t understand it? To me, cricket is a fairly
mystifying sport,” Dorfman said.

The British brought cricket to the American Colonies in the early 1700s. And the game —
featuring two teams of 11 cricketers who use flat-fronted wooden bats to hit a small, heavy ball —
enjoyed a strong following until baseball, an offshoot of cricket, became the nation’s favored game
after the Civil War.

Indianapolis has signed a three-year deal to host a U.S. amateur cricket tournament and
championship, starting in August 2014.

“When people around the world think of cricket, I want them to think of Indianapolis,” Ballard,
a Republican, told reporters in India during a trade visit in April.

Local Democrats have criticized Ballard for his park plans at a time when the city faces a $50
million budget deficit. The project’s funding is coming from a $425 million fund set aside for
infrastructure upgrades.